Assessing Tertiary Turkish EFL Learners’ Pragmatic Competence Regarding Speech Acts and Conversational Implicatures

Abstract

Pragmatic competence is an indispensable component of communicative competence, which plays an essential role in human communication. When an individual is communicatively competent, he/she can carry out an effective conversation in social situations. Therefore, pragmatic competence establishes a compelling factor in English language learning as it permits second/foreign language learners to carry out successful conversations in real-life interactions outside the classroom atmosphere. The improvement of foreign language learners’ pragmatic competence will strengthen their communicative competence. The purpose of this paper is to assess foreign language learners’ comprehension of conversational implicatures by using a multiple-choice discourse test (MCDT) and their performance in a discourse completion test (DCT). Through the use of a quantitative analysis, 54 adult learners of English at C1 and B2 levels of proficiency defined by the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) in a university in Cyprus were tested on their use of implicatures and speech acts. EFL learners were more successful in the MCDT regarding the comprehension of formulaic and idiosyncratic features but received lower results in the DCT. As well as testing the proficiency level, this study was also designed to investigate the difference between the gender performances of the DCT and MCDT. The results revealed that there is no statistical significance between the male and female respondents in terms of pragmatic competence. Based on these results, the role of teaching pragmatics in EFL classrooms portrays a major aspect for a sustainable learning environment. Thus, the paper also illustrates suggestions for future research.